The Beauty of Fetish

There were a lot of great things that happened at the recent MadTown Kinkfest, but one of the most interesting and inspiring moments for me came during a chance encounter in a hallway. A Madison friend of mine, I’ll call him Conqueror, was chatting with me and DoNotGoGently as we refreshed ourselves with water.

“Drink up!” he encouraged. “You’ll need it later!”

DoNotGoGently smiled as I looked confused. “He wants to get a golden shower later,” she explained. My eyes widened further, since I’d not known either one of them were into that particular fetish. She read my surprise correctly. “Oh, yes, I’ve done it a couple of times,” she shrugged. “It’s interesting,” she added with a mild tone, much like you might say “Oh, yeah, that was a pretty good movie.”

Conqueror, on the other hand, was ebullient. “I had my first one yesterday!” he exclaimed. “I’ve done other stuff…like flogging…and it was like, yeah, ok, that was fun. But this!” His eyes were literally shining with the passion of the convert. “I think about it all the time. I can just be taking a piss, and I think, wow…this is sexy!” He looked again at DoNotGoGently with a shy, boyish grin. “So…I’m trying to round people up to do one later. Think you might be up for it?”

She smiled and hugged him and said that she would see him later. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen simply because she’d sweated so much in her scenes that her body didn’t have any excess water to get rid of…but that’s not the point.

The point, to me – the beautiful thing – is that he was able to not only identify that joy, but openly share it. He felt safe enough in the community to approach a complete stranger (he’d just met DNGG that day) and ask if she’d share in it.

And she was willing. She, also, felt safe enough to consider it, to decide that even though it’s not her thing per se, it might be fun to help him have some fun. Now, she’s just like that; tends to be helpful in many ways. But I can’t help but think that there is something special, something very liberating about not having to work through the shame, guilt, and persecution that accompanies so many fetishes.

What would the world be like if people didn’t have to be ashamed of their sexuality? Dossie Easton apparently posited the question at the recent “Three Wise Women” conference. I wish I’d been there to hear the answer…but I think I may have been in a place where I could catch a glimpse of that world.

I’m here to tell you: it’s a beautiful place.

In other news, you can check out a new video from me on fetlife: How to Rig a Dame (yes, you have to pay the $5 to support FetLife, and yes, it’s worth it). You can also hear way more about me than I’m really comfortable with on Episodes 9-10 of the Dark Side Podcast, who recently interviewed me.

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2 thoughts on “The Beauty of Fetish”

I was just talking to a friend about a person who used to be active in our local community, a very smart, strong and intelligent woman who used to adamantly proclaim to bystanders, “I am NOT a submissive! I’m just a Very Helpful Person!” If that meant having a hood fastened over her head while being whipped, or going through various memorized “slave positions” while singing improvised verses of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (a scene I will NEVER forget!) then she was willing to help. She was a helper!

It’s a really wonderful thing when you can create an environment and then fill it with the kind of people who feel safe and comfortable helping each other find and/or get what they want without shame or fear.